Rediff.com

Bangalore, Jan 16: After a year of seeking to deny the obvious, Karnataka chief minister N Dharam Singh on Saturday admitted what Bangalore residents have been complaining about for so long - the terrible condition of the city's roads. What is worse, he has expressed helplessness over the matter.

He has gone a step further, admitted that it was because of the vested interests in the Bangalore City Corporation that work to improve the condition of the roads is making no progress.

The vested interests are coming in the way of calling for tenders for the road works, Singh said.  "Tenders have been issued for many projects. But nobody is coming forward to participate. I don't know why this is happening," he said.

In defence of his government and more in line with the stand he has been taking all along, he added that "the state government has initiated several programmes to improve the infrastructure in the city, but still the public does not feel so", he said.

After the coalition came to power over 20 months ago, nearly Rs 1,900 crore (rs 19 billion) worth of projects have been taken up for Bangalore city without much benefit to the common man, he regretted.

The chief minister said that he would convene a meeting of urban department officials on Tuesday and put things in order. This apart, the Centre is likely to release Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) this year to improve Bangalore's infrastructure.

There is a need to build many more flyovers in the city in order to regulate the traffic movement.

To improve the situation, a project has been prepared envisaging an outlay of Rs 350 crore (Rs 3 .5 billion), he revealed, adding that Rs 44 crore (Rs 440 million) would be earmarked for this in the next budget. The chief minister could, however, see a silver lining.

He was upbeat about work on the proposed international airport, which was on in full swing despite BIAL having no chairman. On the Metro Rail, he said the project has taken off with the government issuing orders to acquire 27 acres of private land.

Singh said that he would meet the chief executive officer of Infosys Technologies Nandan Nilekani and find out what prompted the company to announce it will look beyond Bangalore for its expansion plans.

"I will talk to Narayana Murthy also on what forced them to take such a decision. We will assure them that we (government) are going to help," he said. Infosys had said on Wednesday last that it had no space to expand in Bangalore.